


Belong

by patchfire



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-26
Updated: 2012-06-26
Packaged: 2017-11-08 14:36:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/444244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of the hottest summers that Petunia could remember, but as she sat at the table, she shivered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Belong

**Author's Note:**

> Written post-OotP in 2004. Beta'd by primroseburrows. Title taken from the R.E.M. song of the same name.

_Her world collapsed early Sunday morning  
She got up from the kitchen table  
Folded the newspaper and silenced the radio  
Those creatures jumped the barricades  
And have headed for the sea_

It was August. One of the hottest summers that Petunia could remember, but as she sat at the table, she shivered. She had on slippers, a sweater, and a housecoat, all over her long flannel nightgown. (The one she wore winters, when the daytime temperature was barely above freezing.) And still she was cold.

She had woken around two the morning before, startled, and sat up in bed for thirty minutes, shivering, before she had changed her nightgown. She had shuffled down the hall to the loo, only to nearly trip on her nephew. He too was dressed for winter, back against the wall, almost seeming to guard the stairs. Their eyes met, and the admonishment she had been set to deliver stopped just short of her lips. 

"You felt it too," Harry said, voice low and matter of fact. Then he shook his head and stood, headed back to bed. 

She hadn't been warm since. She had gone inside the bathroom, shut the door, and sat on the lid of the toilet seat, shaking. Her eyes were heavy, but tears wouldn't come. She had wanted to scream and rage, but not even a whimper could escape her throat. She had known, somehow, for years, that whatever had designated her sister a witch - well, it was genetic, they said. Claimed it was a mutation, but she couldn't believe that, not fully. Not when she and her wizard nephew were awake. Not when they were awake, and her husband and son slept on blissfully.

All through that day she had been cold, both of them, and she had for once been only too happy for Vernon to work overtime, for Dudley to spend the day and evening both with Piers. Harry ignored her, and she him, both knowing. Both cold.

That evening, she couldn't sleep, and when she shuffled down the hall towards the same toilet, she wasn't surprised to see Harry in the same place. His expression was harder, and she could tell, somehow, that he hadn't gone to sleep.

"I'll be gone in the morning, I think, by the time you and Uncle Vernon are awake," he had said, then nodded once. "Be safe." He had disappeared into his room then, and a renewed sense of foreboding swept over her. 

Now it was Sunday morning, and he was gone. All that was left of her nephew was a paper with a moving picture, left under her placemat. There was a note scribbled on it from him, but she couldn't make it out through her tears, the tears that finally came. She left the paper where it was when she left the kitchen, headed upstairs. Suddenly she was glad Dudley had not stayed the night at Piers', and she walked into her son's room silently. Staring out the window, Petunia almost thought she could see shadows darting in and out of the clouds in the pre-dawn light. She had a strong wish for her son - a prayer and a plea for him to do what she had never fully done. A wish she had never articulated, but felt she must, now.

Belong.  
Belong.

She pulled her housecoat tight around her, afraid that her world would never be warm again, no matter how much her son or her husband might sweat in the summer heat.


End file.
